Why Do We … Uhhh, I … Seem to Need to Feel Special?

I’m feeling very special at the moment because I just watched a video that said nice things about me.

I’m using today as an experiment. I’m marching around with my chest stuck out and watching the way I feel, as a means of trying to understand why I (and perhaps we) seem to need or want to feel special.

In the work ahead of us, needing to feel self-important may turn out to be a heavy burden.

Ordinarily if I felt this false sense of self-confidence, I’d wait for the moment to pass. I can’t prevent the thought from arising but I can refrain from asking it to speak on my behalf.

When I look, what I see, over and over again, is that, if I’m special, it increases my chances of surviving in a world populated by what I once characterized as “separative selves struggling for survival in a society of seeming scarcity.”

Being special, in other words, has apparent survival value in a world we believe to be characterized by scarcity, which seems to require struggle to survive.

It ignores the fact that we’re not separate; we always survive, even death; there’s no inherent need for struggle, which only makes matters worse; and there’s no real scarcity and no need for it in a world that we don’t really understand. Nonetheless, there is a need to understand that world.

When I’m thinking I’m special – and even superior – I’m clearly looking out for No. 1. I’m clearly being self-serving and survivalistic.

Having created a view of myself as special, I then begin to sell that image to others. I tell my friends about what I found. I adjust my self-image to incorporate this new discovery. I feel proud, even arrogant. I make a big deal of myself, strut up and down.

When I’m in the space of higher-dimensional love, no such thought would occur to me, but here in ordinary, everyday vibrations I lapse into self-servingness.

Also, if I don’t trust in Providence to provide, then I see it as unavoidable that I “survive” only by my own efforts. This again gives survival value to representing myself – in my own mind and in the mind of others – as special.

Falsely-self-confident people are open to manipulation. The most obvious example would be from flattery. The emperor with no clothes is praised for his taste in haberdashery. It all being illusion, the emperor is building on shifting sands rather than the solid rock of reality. When the first objection is raised, off come the glasses.

A statement common in war movies is that blustering dictators and their soldiers need to prove themselves every day. If that statement is true, I imagine their self-confidence isn’t built or based on anything even halfway real. It has to be shored up and regularly maintained.

In my view, genuine self-confidence or self-esteem doesn’t brag. It’s reward enough and doesn’t need stoking or stroking. But false-self-confidence, born of puffery, does seem to require it – constantly. People can be divided into friends and foes, depending on who is willing to provide it.

I see this apparent need to feel self-important on some discussion groups. People write in apparently wanting to get strokes or feel special. (At some level, probably so do I.) It’s so easy to slip into.

But there’s something about doing it that fairly leaps out of the page. Our puffery is usually invisible only to us. And it usually turns people off, many of whom may want to feel special themselves. We see light wars breaking out. (1)

But I believe it’ll be necessary once our work of reconstruction begins to put aside the need to feel self-important. I know it’ll be vital for me. I’ll be running several companies and their operation cannot “be about me.”

I’m going to have to battle incipient thoughts of superiority along several lines, lines that our society has reinforced. What lines does our society support? Male superiority, educational superiority, income superiority, possessions, contacts, race, religion, and so on. We’ll have our work cut out for us.

Just as I saw that anger disappeared when fear disappeared, so when my lack of trust in Providence and my failure to feel higher-dimensional love at the moment disappear, so the need to feel special should also disappear. The one, I think, leads to the other.

The ironic thing is that, compared to who we present ourselves as being now, the real us is indeed special. The real us is Divine, super-intelligent, super-compassionate. What could be more special?

So we actually are special compared to the way we present ourselves now. But that Divine essence that we are would never feel the need to feel special or assert superiority. Nor could our contact with it be maintained if we insisted on feeling special.

That’ll come soon enough. The events said to be in our near future – the heart opening and Ascension – should clear away this problem area for us for all time.

Footnotes

(1) There seem to be two causes of light wars. The first is jealousy that someone else is stealing our spotlight. And the second is causally related: It serves the first. We contest the status of their knowledge. How do they know? What are their sources? What right have they to say that?

Post navigation

One comment

What’s described here sounds like a conflict between the human ego and the eternal soul of the writer! It’s really not that big a deal. We all occupy several different dimensions of existence simultaneously. If you hold kind and generous intentions toward others as foremost in your activities, you may just find that everything else falls into place automatically. Surf your life with love in your heart! You’ll be amazed at how everything else falls into place, when love and service are your fundamental intentions.

About Wes Annac and Openhearted Rebel

I'm a twenty-something writer & blogger with an interest in spirituality, revolution, music and the transformative creative force known as love. I operate Openhearted Rebel, a daily news blog dedicated to igniting a revolution of love by raising social and spiritual awareness.
I write from the heart and try to share informative, enlightening writings with the rest of the conscious community. When I’m not writing or exploring nature, I’m usually making music.
I can be found on Facebook (Wes Annac - facebook.com/wesannac, Culture of Awareness - facebook.com/openheartedrebel), Twitter (twitter.com/Wes_Annac), (twitter.com/openhearted_rebellion), and my personal blog, wesannac.wordpress.com